This time of year is one of the most intriguing times for a sports fan. With the Major League baseball season winding down, division leaders, teams on the cusp of making the playoffs, making free agent moves, and the start of football season, speculation and enthusiasm are running high.

We will start on the local high school football scene. North Montgomery returns a strong nucleus, and I imagine they’ll be one of the top teams, not only in the county race, but also the Sagamore Conference. They return reigning Player of the Year, Alex Parsons, quarterback, Baylee Adams, and a wealth of specialized players that should have Coach Josh Thompson and crew looking for another successful campaign.

One of the most recent stunning changes in the child welfare system has been the major growth in the number of children in state custody who are living with their relatives. Kinship care refers to the full time care and protection of children by relatives, extended family members or any person that has a family-like relationship with a child. Kin is defined as “one’s family and relations.”

The practice of kinship care has become an important part of the child welfare system in the U.S. Kinship care arrangements fall into three categories: informal, voluntary or formal. Informal kinship care does not involve the child welfare or juvenile system. Voluntary kinship care is a situation in which children live with relatives and the child welfare system is involved. Formal kinship care involves being placed in the legal custody of the State and places by the child welfare systems with grandparents or other kin.

Just five years ago, Congress passed a big, widely hailed law that promised to make America’s food supply safer. But because of inadequate funding for new regulations and inspectors, the promise has yet to be kept.

Sometimes cutting government spending has serious consequences, and there’s no better example of that than what’s happened to the Food Safety Modernization Act.

In 2010 Congress enacted legislation whose goal was to set tough anti-contamination standards for foods ranging from peaches to imported pesto sauces and to increase the number of inspectors for the increasingly complex food system.

The Principles of the League of Women Voters are “concepts of government” to which the League at all levels subscribes. They result from principles supported and positions taken by the League as a whole in fields of government to which the LWV has given sustained attention. They serve as authorization for adoption of national, state and local program and a basis for taking action at the national, state and local levels.

The League of Women Voters believes in representative government and in the individual liberties as established in the Constitution of the United States. The League of Women Voters of the United States believes that all powers of the U.S. government should be exercised within the constitutional framework of a balance among the three branches of government: legislative, executive and judicial.

I don’t usually write an article without an interview, but this week’s guests are celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary this weekend and I thought it would be fitting to honor them this way. I’ll give you some hints. First off, they love the Mounties. Both of their children graduated from there and their son has coached basketball and tennis with their teams. Secondly, I have known him the 50 years of their marriage but knew this gal probably since I was born. Our parents were good friends and I literally grew up with her and her sister. She spent 27 years as a teacher’s aide at New Market School. He retired after 32 years at MidStates and seven at Yes Conveyors. Presently, he works for the town of New Market.

When taxation is part of government, wealth redistribution goes hand in hand with it. Taxation was what feudal systems used so as to pay rent to the monarchy. The monarch, after all, used to own the realm. All of it. So just as owners of apartment houses, monarchs collect rent from those living in there.

The meaning of this is that members of the population got to live in the country by permission of the government, be that a tzar, king, pharaoh, caesar or some other ruler who had nearly absolute power to run the place. It is still so in many regions of the globe. The people aren’t deemed to have rights, including private property rights. That emerged late in the history of Western politics, mainly within the philosophy of the Englishman John Locke and his followers. They defended the idea of natural rights against those who championed the divine right of monarchs.

As I write, a four month old kitten named Simba is curled up next to me, resting against my thigh. He occasionally bats at the Sydney Opera House charm, a gift from Australian Sam that dangles from my bracelet. But mostly he is resting, purring contentedly like a finely-tuned motor in a well-maintained car.

This is new for me. I have not been exposed to animals very much throughout my life. Mostly, I have been fearful of them due to an unfortunate childhood experience.

When I was seven years old, my friend and I were skipping happily down the sidewalk, carefree as seven year old girls should be. Suddenly, it seemed out of nowhere, two German Shepherds appeared in front of us, fighting ferociously. Standing on their hind legs, they were as tall as me, and their sharp teeth were eye level. The growling was fierce, and the snarling terrifying.

I learned something last week about an agreement that protects historic bridges in Indiana, such as the covered bridge in Darlington, which was posted to the National Register of Historic Places on Nov. 28, 1990, and the covered bridge in Deer’s Mill, which is “eligible for the National Register of Historic Places,” according to Bridgehunter.com.

It was while reporting (researching) a story about the historic bridge over Eel Creek at Bowling Green that I learned a bridge that is on the National Register of Historic Places cannot be moved without the agreement of the Indiana State Historic Preservation Officer and the Advisory Council of Historic Preservation of the State of Indiana.

Wow, where did the summer go? Oh yeah, it pretty much floated away down Sugar Creek this summer with all the rain we have had.

Nonetheless, starting next week, real practices begin for the fall sports. That’s right athletes the point in the year you all dread is near . . . Two a day practices!

Two a day practices are brutal, the athletes work incredibly hard trying to prove themselves to coaches (at least they should be). Coaches, of course, know who has been putting in the effort all summer long and those athletes that work the hardest usually excel.

The good folks at the Hoosier State Press Association are partnering with all-around good guy Dave McChesney and his 1Up Software Company to create a first-of-its-kind motorcycle ride for newspaper folks (including readers) from anywhere in Indiana.

Why should you care – besides the fact that you are currently one of those aforementioned newspaper readers? Because the whole thing begins right here in downtown Crawfordsville.